Cruz backs ‘clean’ ObamaCare repeal if GOP can’t pass replacement

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) echoed on Thursday President Trump’s call for Congress to pass a bill simply repealing the Affordable Care Act if Senate Republicans cannot pass a measure to repeal and immediately replace swaths of the healthcare law.

“If we cannot bring the conference together and agree on repeal legislation, then I think President Trump’s absolutely right that we should pass a clean repeal,” Cruz said, according to The Washington Post.

Such a bill, the Texas Republican said, should put off the repeal for a year or two in order to give lawmakers an opportunity to work on a plan to replace ObamaCare.

{mosads}Trump tweeted last week that if the Senate is unable to pass Republican leaders’ current healthcare reform bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act, they should repeal ObamaCare and replace it “at a later date.”

“If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!” he wrote on Twitter. 

If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 30, 2017

Senate GOP leaders are locked in battle with Democrats and some members of their own party to pass the BCRA.

Some conservatives have argued that the bill does not go far enough to repeal former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, while some moderate Republicans have voiced misgivings about the bill’s deep cuts to Medicaid and the projected increase in the number of uninsured Americans.

Cruz has proposed his own amendment to the Senate GOP’s proposed bill, which would allow insurers to sell plans that don’t comply with the ObamaCare’s regulations while requiring that they sell at least one plan in each market that meets the current law’s standards.